


Masterpiece

by RioRiley



Series: Sketches [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Art, Artists, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Cancer, F/M, Illnesses, Love, No Sex, Rey Needs A Hug, Soft Ben Solo, Terminal Illnesses, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23231638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RioRiley/pseuds/RioRiley
Summary: Ben's cancer comes back. This time there's no hope.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey
Series: Sketches [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670296
Comments: 11
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

At the beginning of Rey's senior year in college, Ben got sick again. Everything had been going good. They were in the depths of love. He was following all of his doctors orders, drinking juiced celery, everything they told him to do to make sure he stayed healthy. The thing is, sometimes even if you do all the right things, things still go the wrong way. Things went the wrong way for Ben. The way nobody wanted them to go. Ben's cancer, was classified as terminal. The doctors say there is no hope. There's no point in trying treatment, as it will only prolong the inevitable. Ben doesn't want to go through treatments without purpose, and no matter how much Rey loves him, and wants him to stick around, she just can't bare to watch him go through treatment without even a chance of it doing anything to help him. She can't ask him to go through that just to give her a couple more months with him.

Their friends bring him flowers, once they hear the news. Rey catches him one morning, when he's nude, sitting on the edge of their bed, smelling one of the roses from the vase Rey placed by their bed. There is great contrast between Ben's pale skin and the bright red rose. Contrast between the delicacy of the rose and Ben's muscular form. Contrast with their bright white bedding. She takes a picture. It's absolutely beautiful. He is absolutely beautiful.

That was August.

This is December.

December is cruel to Ben's decaying body. He is frail. His stomach isn't processing things the right way. He's lost all his muscle mass, that he worked so hard to regain after the last occurance. His doctors hook him up with a g-tube. It's called a Mickey. It's connected straight into his stomach, and has a little lid on the outside, where it gets hooked up to a tube, that feeds him while he sleeps with enough of the nutritional supplements to make up for the nutrients that his stomach isn't processing when he eats during the day. 

Back in September, Ben used to hook himself up to his feedings himself. But by the time December rolls around, Rey does it for him. He's just so tired all the time. 

He spends most of his days on the couch in their apartment, and by the time Ben is ready for bed, Rey helps him walk into their room. She grabs the Iv pole, and the cartons of supplements. His bag holds five, but he needs eight to get the nutrition he needs. So Rey grabs all eight, and puts the extra three on their dresser. By the time she has done all this, Ben has slowly lowered himself onto their bed. Rey knows he is in pain. She grabs a syringe, and flushes the port with water, before hooking up the feeding tube. Then she walks to the other side of their bed, and sets an alarm on her phone for midnight, which will be about the time that his bag can fit the three remaining supplements. She climbs into bed next to Ben, and wraps her arm around him. He can't really move a whole lot when he is hooked up to the feeding tube. 

When they used to cuddle he always played the role of big spoon. But now the role is reversed. Ben is smaller than Rey in size now anyway, so little spoon seems more logically fitting, even though Rey knows that it hurt Bens ego a little bit the first time she suggested it.

She pulls him close. 

She smells his soft skin. 

She holds his hand.

She loves him.

He doesn't schedule doctors appointments anymore. He has them planned out for the fifteenth of each month, but he doesn't always go. Sometimes he just doesn't want to know. Doesn't want to know he is doing worse. Doesn't want to know he has less time than his doctors said he had before. Doesn't want to know he will leave Rey sooner than anticipated.

Rey still draws Ben. Not all the time anymore, because she's never quite focused enough. But she draws him sometimes. She draws him when he's asleep, laying on the couch. Face peaceful. She draws him when he's sleeping because it's the only time that he looks okay anymore. It's when he doesn't look like he's in pain. It's when he doesn't look quite so sick. 

She draws his hands. That's her favorite part of him to draw right now. Because after all the shit his body has been through lately his hands still look the same. She draws the little lines in his fingers, knowing the spaces between his fingers seem to be made to hold her own. 

She draws his hands. 

She holds them. 

They're always so cold.

She traces the nooks and crannies of his hands with her fingers. She fears the day that she won't be able to hold his hand ever again. The day that she won't ever see him again.

"You're going to make it big with your art.* Ben says with a smile as he watches Rey draw him one morning. "You'll have masterpieces in the same museums as Van Gogh."

There's a Tuesday in late January, when Ben wakes up more tired than usual. He wakes up, and rolls over to face the window. The apartment across from their own, has their window wide open. Ben smiles as he watches the young children living in the apartment, chasing one another with little nerf guns. They've never met the neighbors but Ben finds solace and peace in watching the little boys. 

He watches as they continue to chase one another, around their living room, and then watches as the older boy hits the younger one with the butt of his toy gun. 

" Ouch." Ben says with a laugh. 

Rey hears him from the kitchen. Her senses seemingly elevated to words signalling Ben's pain. She dashes in.

"Are you alright?" She asks breathlessly. 

Ben smiles. 

"He just hit his brother on the back of the head with the Nerf gun. Far better than anything on TV." Ben says laughing. 

Rey sits down next to Ben, and holds his hand. 

"They're so cute." Rey says softly.

"I want you to promise me that after I'm gone you'll find love again so that you can be a mother." Ben says suddenly.

"Okay." Rey says quietly.

"If we had been able to have kids, what would it have been like?" Ben asks quietly.

"You would have been a really good dad." Rey says confidently.

"When I was little, when people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always told them I wanted to be a dad." Ben says sadly.

"I feel like you'd be a great father to little girls." Rey says with a sad smile.

"You're going to be one of those moms who shops at the organic stores and makes your kids homemade fruit snacks." Ben says with a soft laugh.

"I totally would." Rey says laughing. Ben grips her hand tighter.

"If we had kids, do you think they would have liked me?" Ben asks.

"Absolutely. You'd have let them sit on your feet, and walked around like Frankenstein." Rey says. "Or sit on your back and ride you like a pony." 

"I hope, that when you find someone, after I'm gone, that they love you even more than I do. It doesn't seem possible that someone could, but you deserve that Rey. You deserve to feel that love." Ben says.

In February, things get worse. Ben sleeps a lot more. He's in pain. He's always so cold. Rey stops going most places. She lets their friends do their grocery shopping. They volunteered to do so. She just wants to be with Ben. All the time. He doesn't mind. He wants to be with her too.

They go for walks whenever Ben is feeling up to it. Ben bundles up, with a scarf, hat and coat, and they walk around the empty winter parks. Hand in hand. Rey keeps a hand at the back of Ben's back, right where his spine curves. With the thick layer of his coat, Ben is almost at his normal size. And if Rey closes her eyes it's as if everything is fine. 

Everything isn't fine.

Oh, how she wishes it was.

"I don't want to leave you." Ben says as they walk through the park.

"I know darling." Rey says quietly.

Rey is supposed that Ben makes it to March, and knows it is naive to hope he will make it to April. She knows he won't. Things are going downhill too fast. He's just too sick.

She spends a lot of time painting, mostly late at night when she can't sleep. She's set up an easel in their room amidst all the medical equipment so that she doesn't have to be away from Ben as she does what she loves. She honestly has this paralyzing fear that Ben will die when she's not in the room. She doesn't want him to have to die alone.

She paints the picture that she took back in August, of Ben with the red rose. It's elegant. It's something she can keep forever. She flips through her old sketchbooks, looking at the drawings of him, when she thought he was at his worst.

But this is so much worse.

Dying is not for the faint of heart, Rey decides, and neither is watching someone you love go through the process.

Rey calls Ben's parents on a Saturday morning. She lets them know that Bens hospice nurse doesn't think he will make it through the weekend. Han, tells her he thinks it would be best for him to stay away. That he thinks it would be best if he doesnt come see Ben.

Quite frankly Rey thinks Han is a coward.

She doesn't even tell Ben that she has called his parents. After she gets off the phone, she just climbs into the hospital bed that has become stationary in their living room, she curls up next to Ben, with her head on his chest. She listens to him breathe and hopes to God there never comes a day when she can't remember how it sounds. She hopes she never forgets what it felt like to have his strong arms wrapped around her. She hopes she never forgets how safe she felt in his company. 

It's Saturday night and Ben is asleep.

Rey has been sitting with him all day, too afraid to leave his side. She talks to him. Hoping he can hear her. She shows him her painting, even though his eyes aren't open to see it.

"I painted this of you. I don't know if you even remember me taking the photo. It was right after we found out you were sick again. I've been working on painting it the past few weeks as you've been asleep, and I finished it last night. I was hoping to be able to show it to you, but I'm beginning to think you aren't going to wake up again, are you? It's okay Ben. I know you would have loved it." Rey says with a deep breath.

"It's okay if you need to leave Ben. I'll be okay. I promise. I'll keep going. I'll keep breathing. And I won't forget you. I never could." Rey says through tears. She watches the slightest smile form on Ben's lips, and has a naive hope that he is going to wake up. She holds his hand tighter. She kisses his lips.

"I love you Ben. You're going to be okay." Rey says through tears, pleading, as she watches Ben's chest rise and fall, and then stay still. She kisses him again. The smile stays on his lips. He looks peaceful. He looks happy. He's free.

As it turns out, love is life's greatest masterpiece.


	2. Chapter 2

Final installation of the sketches saga is now posted.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey! So I'm in college, and I've written an actual book. Like paper. Physical copy book. I have lived writing on Ao3, and I owe the world to my people here who have read the things I have written. It means the world.

Check out my book:   
https://www.blurb.com/b/10367532-sicker

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm a broke ass little college kid who is now home because my college has gone online bc corona. So life is lit kids. I hope this doc brightens your social isolation period, and hey in lieu of idk, sending me money on venmo, could you please leave a comment? I thrive on comments haha.
> 
> Stay safe out there young bloods.


End file.
